Winemaker Notes
The Patriarch is The Calling's flagship Pinot Noir and truly the patriarch of their portfolio: complex, balanced, and full-bodied. Hints of wild berries and fresh pine, dried cranberry, pomegranate, black tea, and sea spray on the nose. In the glass and on the palate, you'll find sweet, savory cherries, blackberries, and raspberries, dried thyme, baking spice, forest floor, and orange rind.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
A lively, focused version that relies on freshness, mixing crunchy cherry and damson plum fruit with touches of sous-bois and red tea. Subtle energy ripples underneath from start to finish. Drink now through 2026. 100 cases made.
The Sonoma Coast AVA is large in area but, not counting overlapping regions like Russian River Valley, only has a few thousand acres of grapevines—and it’s no wonder. Much of the region is rugged and not easily accessible. Its proximity to the Pacific Ocean’s fog and cool breezes limits the varieties that can be cultivated, but it proves to be an ideal environment for high quality Pinot Noir.
Since fog is a frequent fact of life here, as are heavy marine layers that sometimes bring rain, the best vineyards are wisely planted above the fog line, on picturesque ridges that capture enough sun to provide even ripening. That, with the overnight drop in temperature that reliably preserves acidity, results in fine expressions of Pinot Noir that often receive tremendous critic and consumer praise alike, and are often in high demand.